Rescuers renewed their search today for a toddler
who was swept away from his mother when water overwhelmed
them on a trail beside a creek.
A teenager was swept away in a separate incident after a
thunderstorm dropped 1 1/2 inches of rain in about 30 minutes
Monday night.
Both were presumed dead, but “there’s a chance, and we’re hoping
for a miracle,” Fire Department spokesman Phil Champagne said.
A woman was walking with her 2-year-old boy in a stroller along the Platte around 7 p.m., near Invesco Field when the water rose rapidly.
She fell, losing her grip on the stroller, and the stream carried the child and the stroller into the Platte. Firefighters rescued the the woman and she was rushed to Denver Health Medical Center. Her condition was not known.
Fire department spokesman Lt. Phil Champagne said the woman was able to relay information to searchers.
However, authorities feared the child drowned. Rescuers found the stroller more than a mile downstream.
“There aren’t very many entry, exit points,” Champagne said about the creek. “Unfortunately she was caught by a freak flash flood, it knocked her down.”
In Bible Park on Denver’s south side, a Denver Police officer was injured trying to rescue a young man, who appeared to be in his late teens or early 20s from the water, Detective John White said.
A witness saw the man swept from a trail that runs along the gulch toward Cherry Creek at about Yale Avenue and Oneida Street.
The witness flagged down an officer. He went in to save the man but got into trouble himself.Two other police officers and several firefighters managed to rescue the officer. However, they were unable to rescue the young man, White said.
The officer was not identified but has been with the department since 2004. He was rushed to Denver Health Medical Center with hypothermic symptoms, White said.
About 10:30 p.m., rescuers had called off the search for the man and presumed he had drowned.
“The body of this individual could be anywhere from here to Commerce City,” White said. “I would have to say that the officer acted very bravely and boldly.”
Severe storms, carrying heavy rain, at least 4 inches of hail and tornados swept across the Front Range Monday evening, swelling rivers and streams and spawning tornados.
There was no immediate confirmation of funnel clouds touching down, Weld County spokeswoman Margie Martinez told the Associated Press.
Other counties under tornado warnings were: Adams, Arapahoe, Bent, Elbert, Washington, Morgan, and Prowers.
Interstate 25 was flooded along downtown and CDOT crews were using plows to push the debris off parts of the freeway so the water could drain. Along a gulch at Yale and Quebec, hail had been shoveled into piles that looked like snow drifts.
Underpasses along I-25 that were flooded included Alameda, 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. Cars were reportedly stuck in some of the locations.
At the northbound on-ramp from Speer Boulevard to I-25, motorists were driving off the road in order to get around a large pool.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
